Elizabeth Davies: Some people simply refuse to retire

I have 33 years, three months, two weeks and six days until retirement.

Elizabeth Davies

I have 33 years, three months, two weeks and six days until retirement.

Not that I’m counting.

For some people, retirement comes the minute the words “Social Security payment” and “Medicare card” become a reality. For others, a hefty retirement fund and enough cash to spring for health insurance means cutting out several years early.

And for the blessed few, retirement simply isn’t in their vocabulary.

Consider Brett Favre, Michelle Kwan and Michael Jordan. Even at the top of their game, these stars were being asked about retirement. And how fickle we are: Just two years ago, some football fans were moaning that Favre was past his prime and needed to retire. Now, there are “Favre 4 President” T-shirts going for $22.

As skating fans debated Kwan’s possible retirement in 2002 — she had won her second Olympic nongold medal at that point — the figure skater decided to stay in the game. She went on to win three more national titles.

And Michael Jordan, having already retired from both basketball and baseball, returned to the NBA to lead the Chicago Bulls to another three-peat of world titles in the late 1990s.

What kept them motivated to show up for work every day, when the rest of the world considers quitting around 9:01 every Monday morning?

It defines them.

Some people are paper-pushers for 40 hours a week. Some people are retail clerks or managers, or accountants. But when the time clock gives them permission to go, they become someone else. They become Mom or Husband or Free Spirit. That’s when they live their life. Work is simply a means toward paying for that identity.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But I have to admire the people who find passion and purpose in their work. I come across them fairly often as I write stories for People of the Rock River Valley. And, because it’s my job to ask intrusive questions, I get to sidestep social graces and find out exactly why some people haven’t retired yet.

Earlier this month, I wrote a story about 90-year-old Charles Reid. He’s been repairing watches for the past 70 years, and still works 40 hours a week. When he turned 90, he decided to cut back to a five-day workweek. When I asked why he hasn’t retired yet — the man shows up to work in a wheelchair, after all — his answer was simple.

“It’s a lot better working than just sitting around,” he said.

Then there was Lily Tolpo, a sculptor from Stockton whom I met in early 2006. She was 88 years old at the time, and working on a larger-than-life statue of former first lady Julia Dent Grant. Despite the fact that she only had the energy to work in short spurts, Tolpo simply couldn’t retire: She had too much artistic passion continuing to flow out of her.

“My mission is to serve, not to get really rich. After all, there’s only so much you can buy,” she told me. “When you have that attitude, it seems you always have enough.”

And when I think about people who don’t retire, my mind always goes to Dr. Michael Montaleone. I first met this Rockford orthodontist when I decided to get braces as an adult. He was well into his 70s at the time, and I silently wondered if he would keep working long enough to one day take my braces off. He did — and was continuing to put braces on new patients long after my last visit.

Just as Favre lives for the moment he throws a winning pass, Montaleone found personal satisfaction in seeing two rows of perfectly straight teeth.

Perhaps the exceptions — the people who don’t take retirement when they’re expected to — are doing life the way it’s meant to be done. They’ve figured out what makes them happy, and they’re not about to quit.

Maybe retirement isn’t about reaching 65. Maybe it’s not about joining sewing groups, or watching “Wheel of Fortune,” or having a 10 a.m. tee time.

Maybe it’s about doing something you love, and doing it well. And perhaps that — no matter your age — is the key to staying young.